Genesis 10.1-5-The Sons of Japheth

Wednesday October 5, 2005

Genesis: Genesis 10:1-5-The Sons of Japheth

Lesson # 39

Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 10:1.

This evening we will begin to study the genealogy that appears in Genesis 10, which theologians call, “the Table of Nations.”

The “Table” represents God’s concern for all people and all nations and not just Israel, which is understood by the omission of Israel from this “Table” and emphasizes that God, is the God of the Gentiles by omitting Israel.

The Table of Nations was written for the benefit of Israel who according to the Word of God would be the medium to bring blessing to the world.

It was necessary for Israel to understand the source from which the various nations that surrounded her originated in order that she might have an insight into their character by which to guide her attitude and conduct toward them.

The Table of Nations presents a background of world history for the call of Abraham and in fact, out of concern for the salvation of the nations, God calls Abraham and his posterity.

The genealogy of Genesis 10 is “segmented” meaning it displays depth and breadth of the relations between the nations tracing their lineage back to a common ancestor, namely, Noah’s three sons.

The Table of Nations genealogy expresses the kinship and distinctions between Israel and the nations where she emerges from them and is destined to bring blessing to them through the Messiah.

The Table of Nations genealogy is “linear” meaning it establishes continuity over stretches of time without narrative to demonstrate the legitimacy of Noah’s son Shem as the one whom the promised “Seed” Jesus Christ will come.

Seventy nations are presented in the Table of Nations: Fourteen from Japheth, thirty from Ham, and twenty-six from Shem.

The Table of Nations is “selective” and “not exhaustive” since it is arranged to give most attention to those nations with whom the nation of Israel would have most contact.

Thus, the descendants of Japheth are given in Genesis 10:2-5 followed by the descendants of Ham with special attention to the Canaanites in Genesis 10:6-20 and lastly, the descendants of Shem are given in Genesis 10:21-31, which includes the Israelites.

Each section concludes with a formula summarizing the preceding narrative in terms of “families” (genealogy), “languages” (linguistics), “lands” (territories), and “nations” (politics).

The Bible is very explicit and emphatic that men living in the world and all its various races are descended from Noah through his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth (see Genesis 10:32; Acts 17:26).

All the physical characteristics of the different nations and races must therefore, have been present in the genetic constitutions of these six people who came through the Flood in the Ark.

Somehow, by the regular mechanisms of genetics-variation, recombination-all the various groups of nations and races must have developed from this beginning.

History records that the descendants of Japheth settled to the north and west whereas Ham went south after the Flood and Shem traveled east.

Genesis 10:1, “Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood.”

“These are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah” refers to the genealogy that follows in Genesis 10 and this is indicated by the noun toledhoth (toh-led-aw) (tw{dl@w{T), “the records of the generations” which is always used as an introduction to what follows.

Genesis 10:1 is the introduction or preamble to Genesis 10 and contains two parts: (1) Scope of the genealogy: Noah and the descendants of his three sons (2) Identifies chronological context: “After the Flood.”

Genesis 10:2, “The sons of Japheth (“enlarged”) were Gomer (go-mer-name means, “completion”) and Magog (ma-gog-“land of God”) and Madai (“middle land”) and Javan (ja-van) (“one in a state of bubbling heat”) and Tubal (tu-bal) (“You shall be led”) and Meshech (me-shek) (“led along”) and Tiras (ti-ras) (“expulsion, disinherit, impoverish”).”

Herodotus and Plutarch identify “Gomer” with the district of Cimmeria, which is north of the Black Sea.

The Cimmerians were nomadic herdsmen and were distinguished for their archery according to Babylonian texts of the 6th century B.C.

Late in the 2nd millennium B.C. the Scythians drove them from their homeland north of the Caucasus into those mountains into the Crimea when their attempted expansion into China was thwarted and

The Scythians pushed the Cimmerians across the Caucasus and into Armenia, Anatolia and Eastern Europe.

The descendants of “Gomer” include: Celts, Galatians, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Goths, Vandals, Scandinavians, Armenians, Germans, Belgians, Dutch, Austrians, Swiss, Angles, Saxons, Britons, English, Cornish, Irish, Welsh, French.

“Magog” and his descendants inhabited exclusively the region of the Caucasus and of northern Armenia and Josephus says that Magog “founded those that from him were named Magogites but who by the Greeks were called Scythians.”

The Scythians themselves have a tradition that their ancestors originally came forth from Armenia and this agrees with the Scriptures, which places the immediate descendants of Noah in Armenia.

The Japhetic race comprised those whom the Greeks and Romans called Sarmatians, but who in modern times are called Slavs or Russians.

The descendants of “Magog” include: Russians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Finns, Siberians, Yugoslavians, Croatians, Bosnians, Serbians, Slovenians, Slovakians, Bulgarians, Poles, Czechs.

According to 2 Kings 17:6, 18:11; Isaiah 21:2, Jeremiah 51:11 and Daniel 5:28, “Madai” refers to the land of Media and its people who were called “Medes” who settled in ancient “Persia” or what is now called “Iran.”

They settled in the mountainous region east of Assyria and south of the Caspian Sea and both Herodotus and Strabo confirm the fact that they were of Indo-European (that is Japhetic) extract and we know that their language was of this group.

It was through this group that the Aryans developed who later migrated into India to become the progenitors of the Indian peoples.

The Medes were absorbed by the Persian Empire during the reign of Cyrus and were a hostile power to Babylon according to Isaiah 13:17 and 21:2.

The descendants of “Madai” include: Medes, Aryans, Persians, Iranians, Kurds, Turks, East Indians, the peoples of Afghanistan, Pakistan.

The Hebrew noun yavan (/wy) (yaw-vawn') is translated “Javan” in some Old Testament passages (Ezek. 27:13; Isa. 66:19), “Greece” in others (Dan. 8:21; Zech. 9:13) and thus, represents the Greeks and in particular the Asiatic Ionians of the coast of Caria and Lydia whose cities were important commercial emporiums two centuries before those of the Peloponnesus.

The descendants of “Javan” include: Greeks, Spartans, Dorians, Britons, Aeolians, Achaeans, Myceneans, Macedonians, Carthaginians, Cyprians, Cretans, Latins, Venetians, Romans, Sicilians, Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese.

“Meshech” and “Tubal” migrated from Asia and later from Asia Minor to the north beyond the Black Sea, the Taurus Mountains (located directly north of Turkey and along the eastern border of Russia) and Caspian Seas (located directly north or Tehran, Iran and along southern border of Russia) and were known as wild barbarians.

Ezekiel identifies “Magog, Meshech” and “Tubal” as being located far north of Israel, which today is Russia and its republics and prophesied that during the midway point of the Tribulation period these three nations will invade Israel but will be totally destroyed supernaturally by God (Ezek. 38).

The descendants of “Meshech” include: Muscovites, Lithuanians, Romanians whereas the descendants of “Tubal” include: Georgians and Albanians.

Josephus contended that “Tiras” was the founder of the Thracians and the Jerusalem Targum agrees and according to Herodotus (Greek historian 484-425 B.C.) the Etruscans migrated to Lydia in Asia Minor and then went west to Sicily and Italy, which had begun about 1000 B.C. was largely complete by the 8th century B.C.

The descendants of “Tiras” include: Scandinavians, Vikings, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and the people of Iceland.

Genesis 10:3, “The sons of Gomer (“completion”) were Ashkenaz (ash-ke-nas') (“a man as sprinkled”: fire as scattered”) and Riphath (ri-fath) (“slander, fault”) and Togarmah (to-gar’ma) (“you will break her”).”

The descendants of “Ashkenaz” settled originally in what is now Armenia but in later Jewish traditions he was associated with his father Gomer with the Germanic races.

Hence, Germanic Jews are still known as “Ashkenazi,” and which name as some ethnologists contend has also been preserved under the names “Scandia” and “Saxon,” as colonists from Germany made their way into Denmark and its northern islands and to the western shores of the continent.

Therefore, the descendants of “Ashkenaz” formed a large component of the earliest settlers of Germany and Scandinavia.

The descendants of “Riphath” gave their name to the Riphaean Mountains, which early cosmographers thought of as constituting the then northern boundary of the world and settled in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Turkey.

The people named after “Togarmah,” another son of Gomer, are mentioned twice in Ezekiel (Ezek. 27:14; 38:6) and Josephus says that “Togarmah” is the father of the people known as Thrugrammeans, whom the Greeks identified with the Phrygians.

According to the Jewish Targums, “Togarmah” was the father of Germany and there are some who believe that the word “Germania” itself is formed out of the older name “Togarmah”, with the first syllable lost in the process.

Genesis 10:4, “The sons of Javan (“one in a state of bubbling heat”) were Elishah (e-li’sha) (“my God is disregarded”) and Tarshish (tar’shish) (“she will cause poverty, she will scatter”), Kittim (kit’im) (“bruisers”) and Dodanim (dod’a-nim) (“leaders”).”

As we noted in our study of “Javan” who was the fourth son of Japheth, “Javan” represented the Ionian Greeks and if so then “Elishah” is related to the Greeks.

The name “Hellas” is a form of “Elishah,” which came to be applied to Greece as a whole (note Hellespont, Hellenists, etc.) and Homer in his work the “Iliad” mentions the Eilesian people.

“Elishah” was the father of the Aeolian Greeks and is associated with Cyprus since it is mentioned in a number of cuneiform records (ca. 1800 to 1300 B.C.).

“Tarshish” appears frequently in the Old Testament representing a Phoenician copper-smelting center either in “Sardinia” or in “Tartessus” in southern Spain near Gibraltar.

“Kittim” also appears frequently in the Old Testament referring to those who dwelt on the east coast of Cyprus.

“Dodanim” is the collective name of the people descended from Dodan, who were known to the Greeks as the Donlani, the Dardanians of Asia Minor and settled initially around the area of Troy, whose coastal regions are known to this day as the Dardanelles.

A study of Genesis 10:1-4 reveals that Japheth descendants multiplied in the course of time and populated the northern shore of the Mediterranean, the whole of Europe, the British Isles and Scandinavia, and the larger part of Russia.

One major branch of the Japhethites headed eastward into Persia and India.

Therefore, the Japhetic people are, in general, the peoples of India and Europe or what demographers call, “Indo-European stock.”

Genesis 10:5, “From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.”

The term “Gentiles” meaning non-Jewish racially was especially designated to the descendants of Japheth since the Hebrew noun goy (yw{G) is applied to them in Genesis 10:5 but not to the descendants of “Ham” in Genesis 10:20 or “Shem” of course in Genesis 10:31 since the Jews originate from Shem.

Genesis 10:5 clearly refers to the aftermath of the Tower of Babel since it mentions the descendants of Japheth as being “separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations” whereas prior to the Tower of Babel the earth’s inhabitants had the same language, having a one world government headed up by Nimrod.